July 9, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
705 
desiring to obtain the judgment of the society’s 
Floral Committee on some of his seedling Chrysan¬ 
themums, proposed to send them over frozen in 
blocks of ice, that he had received an intimation that 
the blooms were on the road to England, and were 
expected to reach London at an early date. Ar¬ 
rangements were made for keeping them in a cold 
storage chamber until a meeting of the members of 
the society can be called at the Royal Aquarium, 
Westminster, where the exhibition of such a novelty 
as frozen Chrysanthemums in summer may be ex¬ 
pected to create considerable interest. Arrange¬ 
ments were also made for carrying out the society’s 
annual picnic on the 22nd inst., when a visit will be 
paid to the gardens at Redleaf and Penshurst Place, 
Kent. Seven members and one fellow were elected, 
and the recently formed Highbury Vale Amateur 
Chrysanthemum Society was admitted into affilia¬ 
tion. 
-- 
EDWARD JOHN BEALE. 
We include in our pages this week a portrait of 
one of the few horticultural candidates for Parlia¬ 
mentary honours at the present general 
election, viz., Mr. E. J. Beale, of the firm 
of Messrs. James Carter & Co., Seed 
Merchants, High Holborn. Mr. Beale, 
who contested Sir Julian Goldsmid’s seat 
in South St. Pancras, but failed to win it, 
was born in county Limerick in 1836, 
and educated privately in Ireland and at 
the Birbeck Institute in London. In early 
life he became associated with the late 
Mr. James Carter, and at his death 
became a member of the firm of Carter, 
Dunnett, & Beale, which has since built 
up a world-wide reputation, and a busi¬ 
ness of enormous proportions. In 1866 
Mr. Beale married Susannah, daughter 
of the late T. Child, Esq., of Devonshire 
Lodge, Eastbourne, and for many years 
has resided at Stoneydeep House, 
Teddington. He is a fellow of the 
Linnaean Society, a member of the lead¬ 
ing agricultural and horticultural socie¬ 
ties of the country, and corresponding 
member of the Horticultural Society of 
Geneva. It may be mentioned as a fact 
of interest to the curious in such things 
that in 1887 Mr. Beale was the first to 
promise an annual subscription to the pro¬ 
posed Gardeners' Orphan Fund, of which, 
on its formation, his opponent, Sir Julian 
Goldsmid, Bart., was elected president. 
THE GRAPE SCARE 
IN NEW YORK. 
In the latter part of September much 
excitement was created in New York 
City by the Board of Health seizing a 
quantity of Grapes which had been 
sprayed with Bordeaux mixture. All 
sorts of rumours were rife at the time, 
columns of sensational matter appearing 
every day in the leading papers of the 
city and state. This, of course, seriously injured the 
Grape market, which, for various other reasons, was 
already considerably depressed. At the request of 
the New York Board of Trade, and in accordance 
with your instructions, I went to New York City 
when the excitement was at its height. It was found 
that the sensational reports to the effect that tons 
and tons of Grapes were being seized and dumped in 
the river were wholly without foundation. The 
Board of Health, acting upon the advice of its 
assistant chemist, had seized a small consignment of 
fruit from Ulster County, N. Y., and upon this most 
of the fabulous stories were based. 
Soon after my arrival a meeting of the Board of 
Trade was called for the purpose of allaying, if 
possible, the fears of the public and restoring the 
market to its usual condition. By request 1 ad¬ 
dressed this meeting, and gave a detailed account of 
the methods employed in treating Grape diseases, 
dwelling particularly on the Bordeaux mixture and 
its entire harmlessness when properly used. The 
meeting appointed a committee to confer with the 
Board of Health on the subject. I was invited to 
be presented at this conference, which took place 
immediately after the adjournment of the Board of 
Trade meeting. The committee was received very 
courteously by the Board of Health, and after some 
preliminary remarks by the president I was again 
asked to give an account of the Bordeaux mixture, 
how it was made and used, what it was used for, etc. 
This being done, the Board of Health gave its side 
of the case, which in brief was that their attention 
had first been called to the matter by a citizen send¬ 
ing in a quantity of Grapes plastered with a bluish- 
green substance The matter was referred to the 
assistant in charge, who decided that the bluish 
green deposit contained copper in large quantities. 
Search .vas then made at the fruit stands, commis¬ 
sion houses, boat landings, and other places, the 
result being in accordance with the facts already set 
forth. After further deliberation the following state¬ 
ment was prepared by the Board of Health and given 
to the papers :— 
(1) A copper salt is found only upon a very small 
part of the groups offered for sale, and the Grapes 
which are to be avoided are easily recognized by the 
greenish-coloured substance upon the berries and 
stems. 
(2) Whenever this substance is apparent upon the 
berries or stems the Grapes should be washed before 
they are used as food or in the manufacture of wine. 
(3) The board urges all dealers and consignees in 
this city to advise shippers and consignors of Grapes 
to send no more Grapes to this market upon which 
this substance is apparent. The board further 
states that it does not object to the use, at the proper 
time, of the Bordeaux mixture" as recommended by 
proper authorities, but such mixture, or any mixture 
containing poisonous substances, should not be 
sprayed or otherwise placed upon the Grapes imme¬ 
diately before or after they have matured, and should 
not appear upon them when sent to the market or 
offered for sale. 
For the purpose of inspecting the vineyards the 
Board of Health, before finally adjourning, decided 
to send the assistant chemist to the region from 
which the seized fruit came. In accordance with 
your wishes, the division was also represented at this 
inspection, Mr. D. G. Fairchild being selected for 
the purpose. No facts of importance were brought 
out by the visit of the assistant chemist and Mr. 
Fairchild, excepting that wherever vines had been 
sprayed in accordance with the precautions so many 
times set forth by the division the fruit was in excel¬ 
lent condition, both as regards freedom from rot and 
the objectionable deposit. After this nothing further 
was heard of the matter, and in a week at most the 
market was in about its usual condition. 
A large mass of facts has been collected bearing 
on this question, all of which will be given in the 
bulletin on the work of the season. Looking at the 
matter from all sides, no conclusion can be reached 
other than that the blame for the "scare” and its 
consequences rests about equally between the Board 
of Health and a few overzealous Grape-growers. 
There is no doubt that some growers exercise gross 
carelessness in unnecessarily daubing their fruit with 
the mixture long after the treatment should have 
ceased. Even when it came to send the Grapes to 
market, they were in some cases seemingly dumped 
into the baskets without the slightest effort being 
mad& to remove the bluish deposit, which was in no 
case found on berries properly treated. Only a few 
growers did this, but thousands were made to suffer 
thereby. On the other hand, the Board of Health 
acted hastily in the matter, and by its method of con¬ 
ducting affairs caused the press to make a mountain 
out of a molehill. Altogether the lesson has been a 
valuable one, and it again forcibly illus¬ 
trates the old saying that even the best of 
remedies in the hands of some will often 
prove a curse. In some parts of the 
country Grape-growers were actually 
spraying their vines two and three times 
a week, thinking, as some of them have 
stated to me, that if twice a month was 
good, four or five times as often would 
be a great deal better. 
In this connection it may be well to 
caution all Grape-growers in regard to 
the use of Bordeaux mixture in seasons 
of drought. In case dry weather sets in 
after the first or second spraying, it would 
be well to make the rest of the treatment 
with the ammoniacal solution of copper 
carbonate. Altogether, this course of 
treatment will probably be just as effec 
tive against rot and other diseases, no 
matter what the season may be. It is 
certainly cheaper,and removes at once all 
probability of disfiguring the fruit. It 
should be borne in mind, however, that 
the application of all fungicides should 
cease as soon as the fruit begins to ripen. 
If this be done, not the least damage to 
health need be apprehended from eating 
the fruit or drinking the wine made 
from the same. In fact, as has already 
been shown in the publications of the 
division, such fruit and such wineactually 
contain no more copper, which is the 
only poison to be considered, than many 
other foods we eat. — B. T. Galloway, 
Chief of the Division of Vegetable Patho¬ 
logy, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
--I—- 
THE LINNAEAN 
SOCIETY. 
When Linnasus died, at the beginning of 
1778, the collections he had lodged in the 
stone museum he built for their protection on his 
property at Hammarly, near Upsala, descended to his 
son, who died five years later, in 1783. They were 
then sold and, apparently, were little prized by the 
countrymen of the illustrious collector, for they were 
bought by Sir James Edward Smith,M.D.,a physician 
who was born at Norwich, studied medicine at Edin¬ 
burgh, graduated at Leyden, and practised in London. 
It is said that when the King of Sweden heard that 
the books, manuscripts, and herbarium of Linnaeus 
were on their way to England, he made a show of 
indignation, and sent a man-of-war to restore them 
by force. They reached the Thames, nevertheless, 
without mishap, and formed the nucleus of the 
library and collections of the Linnaean Society, which 
was formed in 1788 by Sir James Edward Smith, iii 
conjunction with Sir Joseph Banks. The bust of the 
former and the portrait of the latter face each other 
in the lofty and palatial library of the society at Bur¬ 
lington House. 
Dr. Smith (he was not then Knighted) was the 
first president of the Linnaean Society. In con¬ 
cluding his introductory discourse—a masterly 
review of the rise and progress of natural history—he 
indicated what he conceived to be the peculiar 
Edward John Beale, F.L.S. 
